Can guilty feelings fade?

[theperfectlife]

Speaking from experience, you must either stop all contact...or come clean. I am the OW, cheating on my husband with an OM. I've been married 22 yrs, OM 15. Obviously, we were both unhappy when starting affair. My 16 yr old daughter found text messages, discovered my affair, and confided in my husbands best friends daughter. She in turn told her dad, who followed me and exposed the info to my husband. My husband forgives me, wants to work things out. THe damage did not stop here. My husband decided not to confront the OM. However his bestfriend contacted her and told her everything. Now I am worried about my safety, and am paying consequences for my actions.

Do you see where I am going with this? STOP........or make a change.............BEFORE ITS TOO LATE

[lilmisscantbewrong]

I don't mention a whole lot of my husband in these post for many reasons and I don't wish to get into all of them right now. It's not that I'm not thinking of him and not that I don't love him because I do. But our relationship may or may not go the distance and for a lot of reasons that where there long before there was any affair.

When I discuss it now, especially if I tried on a forum about affair it would just come across as my justification for cheating. And I don't want to do that at all. I love that man more than he could ever know but the things we have been through the last five years have made my heart hard towards him. I've already accepted that I have resentment towards him and that the affair was a huge slap in his face and I do feel very guilty about it.

 

When I say anything about that best interest of my family she friends I'm obviously including him in that.

 

I June what it feel like to be betrayed. We've been through that as a couple too. It's not lost on me how bad this would affect my husband but it's my choice how and what I want to talk about here.

 

Layla - I think I have mentioned this before. I have been in your shoes. Story is the same. It does not end well. Even almost a year after dday my husband was still saying "xmom was my friend". Not only was he betrayed by me but also by his friend. He was obviously still in pain about my betrayal but at that point really processing how this person who came in and out of his home, went to dinner with him, went to church with him, went on vacation with him, could have done this to HIM. Even though I crumbled at the look in his eyes when I finally admitted I had cheated on him, it will never compare to the look in his eyes upon the truth settling in that it was xmom.

 

Feelings fade? Not while you have any kind of contact, especially in your situation. As much as I thought in the beginning, like you, that it could be maintained (believed me we tried on a couple of occasions), it doesn't work. I don't know if I subscribe to nc for life as there are people that have come back in LC years down the road and there is at least one FMOW on this board that actually works with xmom, but for now you must have no contact. You will never recover without it, I am sorry to say.

 

You are here for a reason - you want advice and help. Please listen to those of us that have been there. And my advice will still be, sorry to say, that you just admit this to your husband ASAP. There are no guarantees as to how this will end, but if you are serious about recovering your marriage, it is the only way. Also your husband really needs to know what kind of friend he had - and he is no friend.

[LaylaSings]

You're last paragraph speaks volumes. Unless your H screwed your best friend, I doubt you'll understand his pain if you're discovered. Double betrayals are different. He trusts your MM, he actually thinks this man is his friend. Bottom line you don't screw your best friend's SO. I'm not trying to hurt you, but you and your MM have a morbid view of friendship.

 

I would say that because you don't know the situation you should not make to many assumptions.

What I've done is wrong and would hurt a lot of people but you really have no details on what I've been through with my husband or what he's done at all to start saying what I've done is worse. I'm sure it's easy to assume that and I don't take it personally but I know myself and I know how I've lived my life up to the point I started making mistakes and I know my husband and how he lived his life and the choices and mistakes he made. I don't feel worse than him even a little bit. I do feel horrible at times but I don't feel I've hurt him 'worse' than I was hurt in the past. Nothing he did justified my cheating.. Even his own indescrections. And I accept that. Honestly though there is a lot more to it.

I'm not giving more details on my husband but yes, the women he cheated with were all known to me.

 

You say I wouldn't understand his pain unless put through the exact same thing. I disagree. I feel it even now when I consider him knowing and it kills me.

Even if two people were put through the exact same experience they still might not understand each other's pain because we all deal differently and we all lived our lives differently up to that point. We would feel it in a different way.

 

Please Id like people to leave my husband out of the discussion if assumptions are going to be made because I am intentionally leaving him out of most of my posts for a reason. It sounds like I'm trying to use his past to justify my affair when I speak of him and that's not my intention. But you really have no idea what your talking about in regards to him.

Edited March 30, 2014 by LaylaSings

[LaylaSings]

I won't be confessing. I've given my reasons

People say that I would expose the affair to save my marriage. First of all it would not save the marriage, it would end it. I know it for a fact. Secondly, I do not yet know if I WANT to save my marriage. Right now it works for us and we have young children so I am trying my best to keep things together.

My husband has a good life before people jump to saying I'm using him for money. I work full time on books and business helping to keep it successful, I cook and clean every day and night.. He does none.. I raise our children and the children of other families and am on the board at my children's school. I work really hard to make sure my family has a good life.

In the last 5 years or so a lot of violent and traumatic things have happened and my husband had the choice to be there for me or not and he chose not. He also chose not to be there for my pregnancies.

He's doing his best to be here now and I see that and I'm trying to get over our past but I still don't know if I can. So for now.. I'm doing my best to raise our kids in a happy home. Long term decisions about my marriage will have to be made in the future but for now I'm trying to get my own head on straight and exposing the affair is not even a blip on that radar. It would not save my marriage it would blow all of out lives up. The lives up more than ten people.. Honestly a lot more people than that. And for what? To 'save' a marriage that I don't even know that I'll want five years from now?

 

I'm still waiting for the day when I can let go of the past and Bellevue my husband is remoursful for the things that have happened.

 

I am very sorry for ever getting involved in the affair I really am.

 

I'm sure people picture my home and life a mess. But if you could peek in.. It's probably not at all what you have in your mind. Everyone here is smiling, healthy and happy. And they just have no idea that inside I'm screaming.

[lilmisscantbewrong]

I won't be confessing. I've given my reasons

People say that I would expose the affair to save my marriage. First of all it would not save the marriage, it would end it. I know it for a fact. Secondly, I do not yet know if I WANT to save my marriage.

 

Layla - I hate to tell you but you don't know it would end. My husband always said the same thing, just like many BS's do and when dday hits it surprises them. On dday all bets are off.

 

I don't know what else to say to you so I won't say anything else. I just know how it ends - and it ends badly. Your husband will find out eventually - even if you don't want your marriage it is the right thing to do to tell him - he does have a right to know about his own life. And I am speaking from the point of someone who was the betrayer.

 

I wish you well.

[LaylaSings]

I won't be confessing. I've given my reasons

People say that I would expose the affair to save my marriage. First of all it would not save the marriage, it would end it. I know it for a fact. Secondly, I do not yet know if I WANT to save my marriage.

 

Layla - I hate to tell you but you don't know it would end. My husband always said the same thing, just like many BS's do and when dday hits it surprises them. On dday all bets are off.

 

I don't know what else to say to you so I won't say anything else. I just know how it ends - and it ends badly. Your husband will find out eventually - even if you don't want your marriage it is the right thing to do to tell him - he does have a right to know about his own life. And I am speaking from the point of someone who was the betrayer.

 

I wish you well.

 

I do know it would end. He almost ended our marriage because of my reaction to a friends death once. He felt the amount I cried and the length it took me to get over it meant I loved the guy too much and he said he didn't know that he could stay with me.

 

I know it would end. If he didn't end it after exposure, I would.

[LaylaSings]

It is beyond me how cheating is seen as the worst someone could do. What I'm doing and who with I'll agree is much worse than just a one night stand or a stranger affair.. I'm well aware. It's pretty bad and there is not much worse than what I've done.

 

.. for one second, imagine yourself on the bathroom floor.. Six months pregnant unable to catch your breath after a panic attack .. Having just been told your sisters vehicle has been recovered, after she and your friend have been missing for a week, and it's burned out in a field. There bodies not in it and they are still missing.. Now imagine your husband making a comment not of comfort but about how ridiculous you look on the floor sobbing .. Then extreme anger comes out of him because I am not recovering and moving on the way he would like me too. That day I think started the emotional affair although I had no idea at the time. But my other man, hugged me instead of making fun of me. He cried with me because he hurt to, instead of crying because he thought I was taking it to hard and calling me selfish.

 

Nobody knows how they'll react when something horrible happens.

It's NOT a justification for cheating. I just opened up when I shouldn't have. I needed someone. Now this was three years ago now, and I had been through another violent incident with my husband a couple years before that when he chose not to support me either.. and would go through the suicide of a close friend six months after the murder as well that my husband let me grieve alone.

 

None of this started the affair but it's when other man and I became close.

 

My husband does not deal well under pressure. Unless it's him going through it I suppose, he had no skills to help or support me through.

 

We have been in counselling since then but are not anymore.

He regrets his choices. But I have resentment that I have not been able to let

go of yet.

 

I see him trying hard to be a good husband now. I know that he wishes he could go back in time and change things but he can't. And quite honestly, I wonder who would be there for me should something horrible or unexpected should happen now.. Or in the future.. I just don't know.

I need to get myself together and end my affair. Or my marriage.

 

But I won't be exposing the affair. For any reason.

[LaylaSings]

Ok I already regret that post because I feel I sound like a huge whiner just thinking oh woe is me.. Poor me.. I deserved to feel loved and that's why I cheated.

 

I don't feel that way, to be clear.

 

Horrible, terrible things happen daily to people, who do not go out then, and make bad decisions.

 

I chose the affair. I take responsibility for my choices.

I just wish assumptions were not made about why I chose what I chose because people really have no idea. It wasn't just about attention, validation, revenge or sex. There is so many layers.

 

I feel lost sometimes.

[spookysonata]

I don't think it really matters why you chose this affair...there really isn't anything that justifies it. I agree that coming clean is the best way to handle it, but since you won't, i suppose your alternatives are:

 

say nothing and live with the guilt

 

end your marriage and hope nobody ever figures out why

 

I don't think it will be possible to be "just friends" with him. You tried that and here you are again.

You came here for help and advice. With the messiness of the situation, it's likely that the advice you're getting is not what you want to hear. Doesn't mean it's wrong, though. I don't think there is any good way for it to end. Good luck.

[LaylaSings]

I have said the entire time I have no justification for having an affair. That doesn't mean things didn't lead up to it happening and I feel in love with him and ending that isn't easy.

[Popsicle]

Early on I asked my H if he ever felt guilty. And he said at times it was so overpowering but he never told her. She is a narc and so guilt isn't on the table but it was for my H.

 

He said it was waves. A little bit. Then ignore and forget and be fine. And then a huge almost mind numbing wave of "how can I be this douche bag?" and so he would stop and time would pass and then they wouldn't be caught, I'd be happy and so who was really being hurt? And he would start up again.

 

Fascinating.

[violet1]

I don't assume anything about your husband. I stated my opinion only. Yes, I'm sorry to say, but I do believe what you're doing is worse. You knew your H cheated. You had the choice to stay or leave the cheater. You and you alone, chose to stay. Your H has no idea you are having an A. Him having a past affair is irrelevant because you chose to stay and forgive. He doesn't have that same option because he has been kept in the dark. Doesn't he have the right to decide if he wants to be with a wife who cheats? Not only that, you are holding his heart hostage by taking his choices from him.

 

If you can't let go of the resentment you have towards your H than you need to end the marriage. This is why I and others have suggested to you to get into counselling. Again, this is advice you refuse to take. We can't help you if you refuse to help yourself. You state that you wish the A hadn't happened, you want it to be over. Yet, you refuse to take actions needed to end this chaos. It's possible for you to have feelings for the MM and not act on them. People do this all of the time. It's all up to you. Stop being afraid and take action. Chances are, your guilt will never completely go away and you'll always feel conflicted and confused. If this is how you want your life than carry on!

Edited March 31, 2014 by violet1

[veritas lux mea]

That is a lot of dysfunction going on. Maybe it is time to get up and make some positive changes in your life. Your H was an ass. But you say he is not like that anymore. Are you going to forever hold his past sins over his head or are you going to choose to forgive him (while being married or divorced)? This isn't an attack but I do wonder even though you say you take responsibility for your choice to cheat part of you doesn't want to forgive him because.

 

You will feel worse about your A

 

You will truly feel you need to recommit to your marriage

 

You will have to give up your A

 

You may fall in love with your H again and then the weight of yor unfaithfulness may crush you.

 

So it is a self protection not to keep him from hurting you again but to keep your cake and eat it to and maye not face the full realizaion of what you are doing.

 

I don't know if any of that is true or not. I am not saying that is how you feel so please don't be upset with me. It was merely something for you to ponder.

[Livingeachday]

I just want him to be happy

 

Concentrate on this feeling alone...cos you can make a decision based on that. You just need to find the strength to do it.

 

- Will he be happy if your affair will be discovered and his whole life crumbles around him?

- Will he be happy to possibly lose his children or that they might feel resentment against him?

- Will he be happy when he becomes the talk of the town - cos in a situation where your families are so close everybody you ever talked to will have a fieldday on a story like this?

 

Sit down and imagine the worst possible scenarios that can happen if you will suffer a DDay. And ask yourself - will that make him happy - and you do know the answer to that.

 

You have children. You know that you sometimes have to make decisions that will make them cry, throw a tantrum, beg, plead, and sulk. But you make them nonetheless because you know its in their best interest and you make them out of love for them. Sometimes we have to make tough decision because we love somebody...

 

And you need somebody else to share your hurt, anger and feelings with other than your AP. Have you ever thought about joining a support group for people who went through traumatic experiences like the two you described if you haven't got other friends who can support you?

Edited April 4, 2014 by Livingeachday